


Love

by I_llbedammned



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Love, Memories, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1839994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_llbedammned/pseuds/I_llbedammned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha remembers what love has been to her over the many years that she has been alive and goes over what each person has been to her over time.  Lessons that are learned are never forgotten with time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [open your heart to my hands, i'll be waiting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1190604) by [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82). 



> Written for Be_compromised 2014 Remix challenge. I remixed andibeth82/findthesea's story "Open Your Heart To My Hands, I'll Be Waiting " where Natasha explores memories of love and how they have impacted her over time. I really like how the brief memories added up and gave a view of what Natasha's mindset become over time.
> 
>  
> 
> So decided for my entry I would add in more memories of what love has been for Natasha over the years.  
> I explore her evolution of love with different views of what she used to be and took the similar pattern of letting them all add up at the end.

Natasha learned about love when she was three years old, laying in the sunlight in her mother's arms. She doesn't remember her mother's face, though Natasha has visited this memory a hundred times over and tried in vain to focus in on it. She remembers that her mother was wearing a soft green cotton dress, that she smelled like raspberries, and that the sun was warm.

Her mother began to sing to her, a soft lullaby in Russian. Natasha babbled a little and her mother rocked her back and forth. She remembers feeling safe and warm; like nothing could ever touch her while her mother was there to protect her. Love is simple.

\----------------------------------------------------------  
Natasha learned about love when she was thirteen when she shared secrets in the dark with Galina. The girls in the Red Room would all watch her with wary eyes, scared and angry at what was happening to them and her role as favorite. She could call no one a friend, for friends could be used against her.

But she could have secrets, secrets that would be kept by the dark around her. When the lights got turned out at night and the heavy steel doors were locked whispers would come to her through her door from next door. Stories of sunlit gardens, of mother's lullabies, and tales of Russian princesses would be exchanged for stories. There were other stories too; stories of black bags being forced over heads, of tears, of blood, but those were not secrets. Those stories were painted over all of their faces, in the weary tones of voices forced to grow up too soon.

They never exchanged names; names could be used against you.

A voice floated over to her, "Are you awake?"

"Yes." she answered.

The voice sounded tired, broken, "If you ever get out of here, remember the name Galina. Please." 

"I promise." Natasha said, knowing that she would remember that name for the rest of her life. She never heard that broken voice again, but she remembered the secret promise she made- a bond between two broken girls that she would never tell Ivan about. Love is a secret.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Natasha learns about love at age sixteen, sleeping in the cold metallic arms of the Winter Soldier. It was simple, a physical release that served them both well. Sometimes she would gaze into his eyes and dream that she saw a trace of affection there among all the scars and harsh lines. She knew it was all an illusion, that she was only fooling herself.

All the same she would lay there in the wee hours of the night while her mind raced with all the possibilities of the mission and trace over his scar lines with her fingers. They would tell stories of the battles they had been in, of blood covering their hands and attempts that had been made on their lives. It didn't heal the wounds, but it was good to know that there was someone else out there that understood what they had been through. Love is scars and unspoken wounds.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Natasha learns about love at age eighteen, when a knife was buried in her side and she was left for dead. It wasn't the Winter Soldier this time, it was a French soldier named Jacques. He swore that he could save her from the life that she had been living all these years and she had played along to humor him. She allowed herself to get a little bit too close to a target, she was clumsy.

Without hesitation he drives a knife into her side when she wasn't paying attention to him. He tries to run and she guns him down, not letting a small thing like pain stop her from getting her target. She succeeds the mission and nobody is any the wiser that her heart may have grown weak for a brief moment.

As she sits in the hospital while they bandage her wound she silently vows to never let herself get that close to a target again. A brief moment where the act became real and her reflexes were dulled. She fell victim to the same tricks she had pulled on others countless times. Love is pain.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------  
Natasha learns about love at age eighteen; no at age twenty six as she has to remind herself from time to time, when Clint Barton came back for her when she was trapped in the wreckage of what used to be a car in Paris. She hadn't even known he was around before she heard his voice come to her from behind the wall of twisted metal.

"Nat? You still there?" he said, the tension in his voice just enough to betray his concern.

"Yeah, still here and alive." she coughed painfully, "Well mostly alive. My legs are pinned."

She expected to be left behind as the weak and wounded deserved to be. There would always be another girl there to take her place. So when Clint Barton took a metal bar from the wreckage and shoved it under the wreckage she was shocked, though she covered up her shock quickly. Though he was by no means the strongest man out there, but somehow he was able to use the lever to left the metal that kept her in place enough for her to be able to crawl her way out of the car. He took her arm and slung it around his shoulders so she wouldn't have to walk her way home on bloodied legs alone, paying no attention to the blood and soot that she smeared on him. 

"Why did you help me?" she asked.

"You'd do the same for me." he answered, saying it so matter of factly that even she just nodded and accepted the answer. 

She had never thought about him much, not since they had met a few months prior in Budapest. Even though they had not met under the best of circumstances he still was willing to take a chance on her. She could be the one to draw the blade on him right now, to finish the job and complete the assignment that she had been given and failed at all those months ago.

Instead she allowed him to carry her to a pick-up truck, allowed him to see her wounded and weary after a battle. She trusted that he would not kill her and the idea of that trust set her nerves on edge more than any battle she had been in previously. It made her heart race, though out of panic or affection she wasn't sure. Love is trust.

\------------------------------------------------  
Love is simple, she thought as her past self dosed peacefully in the sun against her mother, taking in the smell of flowers. Love is simple she thought as she caught herself genuinely laughing at Clint as her attempted to show her of all people how to dance. He tripped over his own feet and tried to claim it was all part of the dance.

Love is a secret she thought as she could hear the sounds of concrete and metal scraping against one another, knowing fully what that meant for the girl in the other cell. Love is a secret she thought as she stole one kiss after another from Clint under the pretense of being undercover.

Love is scars and unspoken words she thought as metal fingers gently ran over marks left from electric prods that the Red Room had used on her. Love is scars and unspoken words she thought as she moved her fingers over the slash marks on Clint's back and wondered at the stories behind them.

Love is pain she thought as she felt the jagged edges of the wounds made by getting in too close to a target. Love is pain she thought as she watched Clint writhe around and scream in the middle of the night after having a god invade his mind.

Love is trust she thought as she allowed herself to close her eyes while wounded around a man who could kill her in a second. She felt herself begin to drift off towards sleep and consciously allowed her body to relax as she placed a hand on a knife. On some level she knew she would probably be too slow if he decided to kill her given how much blood she had lost, but the hand on the knife gave her enough of a feeling of safety to allow herself to drift off.

She didn't know what love would be to her in the future, but she looked forward to seeing what it would become.

Love is hope for the future.


End file.
